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Volume IV · Page 599
| INTRODUCTION |
| The "RuSHA Case" is officially designated
United States of America vs. Ulrich Greifelt, et al (Case 8).
"RuSHA" is the German abbreviation of "Rasse - und Siedlungshauptamt Race and
Settlement Main Office), an SS agency which played a very important role in the
case. The defendants were leading officials of "RuSHA" or of three other offices or agencies of the SS. These four agencies, all branches of the Supreme Command of the SS, were the "Staff Main Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism" (Stabshauptamt des Reichskommissars fuer die Festigung des deuthscen Volkstums, abbreviated RKFDV); "Office for Repatriation of Ethnic Germans" (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, abbreviated VoMi), a subdivision of the RKFDV; the "Race and Settlement Main Office" (RuSHA); and the "Lebensborn", which was both a private association (Verein) and a department of the Personal Staff of Heinrich Himmler, the Supreme or Reich Leader SS. Lebensborn may be roughly translated "Well of Life". It was founded by the SS before the war to ensure the support of legitimate and illegitimate children of SS men. It was used during the war for the selection for Germanization of "racially valuable children" of foreign nationals. The defendants were charged with criminal conduct allegedly arising out of their functions as officials of the four agencies mentioned. It was alleged that the crimes charged to the defendants were connected with a systematic program of genocide.* In its judgment the Tribunal hearing the case declared that these SS organizations existed "for one primary purpose in effecting the ideology and program of Hitler, which may be summed up in one phrase — The two-fold objective of weakening and eventually destroying other nations while at the same time strengthening Germany, territorially and biologically, at the expense of conquered nations". The "RuSHA Case" was tried at the Palace of Justice in Nuernberg before Military Tribunal I. The Tribunal convened 121 times, |
* Since World War II genocide has become the widely used term to describe the systematic persecution and elimination of ethnic or religious groups. After the completion of this trial the General Assembly of the United Nations, by resolution of 9 December 1998, adopted a convention entitled "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide".
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